Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

从京东方负债扩张看我国的杠杆收购

20上世纪80年代风靡美国的杠杆收购方式以其巨大的溢价空间和较高的财务、经营风险引起理论学者的研究和实践人士的青睐。我国现阶段,实行杠杆收购有着非常深远的影响和广阔的空间,但仍存在许多制约因素,如法律不完善、资本市场弱式化、投资银行不发达、管理人员素质不高等。     

人.自然.社会—生态悖论思考之一

本文提出了生态悖论的概念，分析其产生的原因、实质、解决的方法以及对生态学和生态经济学理论发展所起的作用。     

Changing rewards in contests: Has the three-point rule brought more offense to soccer?

In the mid-nineties FIFA decided to increase from two to three the number of points assigned to the winning team of a soccer match played under traditional round-robin national leagues. Since a game of soccer can be regarded as a contest, FIFA's measure provides an interesting case-study for analysing how a change in the system of rewards (from a zero to a non-zero sum rule) may affect the contestants' equilibrium behaviour. In this paper we try to assess, both theoretically and empirically, whether FIFA's new point rule has changed soccer towards a more offensive game, in which teams adopt more risky strategies. In particular, we evaluate the “na?ve hypothesis” according to which the measure would induce every team to play always more offensively, and we explore the extent to which the change in teams' behaviour may be affected by quality differentials between teams. Our most important hypothesis is that when the asymmetry between opposing teams is large enough, an increase in the reward for victory induces the weaker team to play more defensively, rather than the opposite. By looking at a subset of matches held in the Portuguese first division league, which approximate the conditions of our model, we find support for this hypothesis. First version received: July 1999/Final version received: May 2001     

论强制性环境治理制度的实施效率

In the eco-environmental governance system,the compul-sive institutions are the most important as well as the mostcommonly utilized.A nation utilizes its administrative,lawand economic power to forbid,boost,bestir and help indi-viduals’behavior concerning environmental governance toensure the realization of eco-environment conservation.The fact,however,turns out to be disappointing about theimpulsive institution’s implementation.Actually,the unsatis-factory practices sometimes even lead to“…     

企业承担生态责任:构建和谐社会的第一步

环境污染事故频频爆发,人们开始关注企业的生态责任。本文从“压缩型”工业化给我国带来的“复合型”环境问题说起,探讨了企业生态责任与和谐社会构建的关系,认为企业承担生态责任是构建和谐社会的第一步。同时,运用企业生态责任战略地图模板,分析指出企业承担生态责任从长期看能够增加企业价值,并探讨了应如何增强企业的生态责任意识。     

循环经济认知误区的实证分析

随着传统经济增长模式危机的出现，世界各国纷纷提出并开始建立循环经济。循环经济作为一种崭新的社会经济发展模式，人们对其认识还存在种种误区，其中认为循环经济是一种最终实现“全新的封闭式的零排放的资源利用方式”、“可解决一切环境问题”的观点最为典型。那么，是否真的存在完美的全社会物质循环呢？实现这种循环的代价是什么？本文以物质循环为基本假设条件，应用扩张环境分析用投入产出模型对社会实现全循环的可能性进行了理论探讨．并以日本为例应用该模型对日本物质循环现状和在现有条件下实现全循环的可能性及其成本进行了实证分析，论证了在现有条件下实现全社会完美的物质循环的难点。     

铜陵矿区生态经济建设

本文根据矿区生态经济系统协调发展和演化的原理,提出合理规划、建设铜陵生态市的建议,以实现铜陵经济、社会的可持续发展。     

FDI对中国国内投资影响的实证分析

在开放条件下,FDI会对东道国国内投资产生强有力的影响,这种影响体现在FDI对东道国国内投资产生挤出效应或者挤入效应。本文对1987—2001年FDI对中国国内投资的影响进行了检验,结果表明:在最近的15年间,FDI对国内投资总体上存在显著的挤入效应;对大多数省份的投资也存在挤入效应,但在东部沿海省份挤出效应和中性效应则占一定的主导地位;FDI对不同地区投资的影响程度也存在明显的差异,呈现出由东向西渐次减弱的状态。     

资金供求影响社会经济运行的经济学分析

资金供求对社会经济运行的整体格局及其效果有着十分重要的影响。就资金供求与货币供求的关系而言，资金供求均衡是货币供求均衡赖以形成的基础。资金运行除了具有货币运行的效应外，还通过生产过程对价值增殖发挥着不可替代的作用。资金供求均衡是货币供求均衡的核心。资金供求和商品供求密切相关，任何一方的失衡都将使另一方的均衡变得十分困难，但资金供求均衡是商品供求均衡的先决条件。实现资金供求的均衡，是实现社会总供给与总需求均衡的重要保证。